The Challenge: Stopping the Scraping and Duplication of High-Value Website Content

Boomer Benefits faced a major problem—competitors were scraping and reproducing their entire website. The stolen content even included their company logo and appeared in search results under competitors’ names. Kelsey Mundfrom, Director of Marketing and Operations at Boomer Benefits, explains, “Our content is what sets us apart in the Medicare industry, and bad actors love to steal it. This theft of our unique value proposition is a big issue.”

Aside from legal implications, web scraping and content theft opened the risk of negative algorithm implications to  their website’s SEO, with potential to cause them to lose valuable incoming visitors looking for Medicare expertise.

“With an already extensive content portfolio, monitoring plagiarism and theft manually was going to be unsustainable as we grew,” Kelsey says. To solve the problem, her teams first tried using a combination of security tools such as firewalls and CAPTCHAs to mitigate the attempts. However, the scraping continued, which prompted them to look for a more comprehensive solution to block automated threats and preserve the integrity of their brand.

The Solution: An Industry-Leading Bot Mitigation Tool at a Fair Price

To explore several options, Boomer Benefits compared providers and consulted reviews on G2, where DataDome is rated Leader in the ‘Bot Detection & Mitigation Software’ category, with 100% of users giving it 4 or 5 stars. DataDome’s AI-powered protection stood out for its ability to detect and block sophisticated bots while continually adapting to new threats. “We wanted to see examples of reputable companies using the solution and needed something that made economic sense for a mid-sized business like ours,” Kelsey recalls. “DataDome ticked both boxes. It was being used by larger companies, which gave it credibility, and we felt it was worth the investment.”

The implementation was quick and seamless, taking only one day to get DataDome up and running across Boomer Benefits’ websites. DataDome’s AI-driven system began learning Boomer Benefits’ traffic patterns, enabling it to better distinguish between legitimate users and bad bots. At the time, Kelsey’s team did not know how much of their traffic was bots, and DataDome helped them analyze the impact of scraping and other threats they didn’t know they had. “Looking at the dashboard, we realized that some areas of the site were bigger targets for bad actors. Knowing this helped us decide which pages needed extra security measures,” concludes the Director of Marketing & Operations.

The Results: Effective Protection, Time Savings, and Customizable Security

Boomer Benefits now effectively prevents competitors from scraping content from their website. “Since we implemented DataDome, we have yet to find a case where our entire site has been copied,” enthuses Kelsey. DataDome ensures their traffic is not hijacked by competitors and their SEO is not damaged.

One of the biggest advantages for her has been the perfect combination of DataDome’s continuously improving AI and the ability to actively use custom rules. This provided a flexible and proactive approach to website protection. “If we notice something suspicious that hasn’t been caught by the solution, we can block it ourselves,” Kelsey explains, “and the next time a similar threat arises, the system will have learned and will block it straight away.”

Beyond the immediate security benefits, DataDome also saved Boomer Benefits valuable time. Real-time analytics and a centralized dashboard enable the team to easily track suspicious traffic without having to jump between different platforms. “We can track IP addresses and spot suspicious patterns if we want to, but can also trust that the analytical tools are working even when we aren’t,” says Kelsey.

DataDome not only stopped malicious competitors in their tracks, but also provided a comprehensive system that is easy to manage and adapt over time. “We were also impressed with the responsiveness of the DataDome team, who were always open to improving the product based on our feedback,” Kelsey added.